Can my employer take a note I wrote from being frustrated as use it as a resignation?

by Restorative
(Texas)

I just want to know.

I work for a nursing facility and have been with them 8 yrs. My position is as a restorative aid which is in the class of rehab.

At my facility restorative, has a lot of responsibility and it doesn't help when the building is short staff. I also do staffing as well.

It was a really tuff day, short of staff, nurses arguing about hall AIDS not showing, residents going wild, it was a very trying morning.

We were suppose to be pairing up on the weekends due to building being so short. Nothing is ever consistent ...

With all going on I called for help, but basically got chewed out by director of nurses (DON).

I was told she couldn't believe I called her for due to both nurses acting like they were. By the time all this chaos died down, I was so overwhelmed and frustrated I couldn't even do my own stuff that day.

I left the other staffer a note telling her how horrible my weekend was and if we couldn't get two more people for staffing, I would rather go back to the floor on 2/1/16. This note was written on 1/10/16 and addressed to our weekday staffer who's in the office with me. I put on the note "please let this be my notice on 1/11/16.

I hadn't heard anything from no one, except how they heard I had a bad weekend. Next thing I know others are asking me why I'm leaving.

I was dumbfounded, so I got to asking questions and found out my director and the administrator decided to take the note I wrote as a resignation letter. I then went home typed up a letter explaining my reason for that note and it was NOT intended as a resignation, but rather basically I was asking, pleading for more help.

Well, I wouldn't have known what was going on unless I wrote the 2nd note which was on 1/19 because that's when the director called me in the office after I gave her the second one and said she read my letter and she is not going to accept it, that her and the admin, had already began their plans that they were going to keep my resignation letter.

I said that's not a resignation letter she began to argue so I just let her finish then walked out the office.

Chris's Response about an employer interpreting a frustrated note to be a resignation letter

First, I want to say that most people, including myself can empathize with an employee feeling overworked, understaffed, especially when that results from an employer choice to run lean and mean to either stay afloat, or just take more profit from a business for themselves.

But you didn't help me to address your issue with regard to what an employer can do, or what you can do should you file for unemployment benefits.

What you did do however, is raise questions for me about what else you might of said in the content of that "note" which you only gave me information about .. out of the context of the complete note.

A few things you mentioned are concerning at this point, as to whether it would also be construed by the TWC as a resignation letter, vs. a frustrated ultimatum/request for reassignment back to the floor, which I assume was once where you performed your job as a restorative aid.

"I left the other staffer a note telling her how horrible my weekend was and if we couldn't get two more people for staffing, I would rather go back to the floor on 2/1/16. This note was written on 1/10/16 and addressed to our weekday staffer who's in the office with me. I put on the note "please let this be my notice on 1/11/16.

Question: Does the weekday staffer, in the office with you, have authority over you? In other words, are you the weekday staffer's subordinate, or co-worker with equal authority from the employer?

Question: Notice of what on 1/11/16? "I put on the note "please let this be my notice on 1/11/16"."

Question: Walked out to where? Back to work, or home for good? "I said that's not a resignation letter she began to argue so I just let her finish then walked out the office.

Question: Are you currently unemployed? Because your question vacillates making me not quite certain since note was written on 1/10 indicating a "notice of something" being effective 1/11 that if things didn't change by 2/1, something would happen. And I'm clueless as to what happened on 1/19, except you, a restorative aid, were apparently told they thought your note was a resignation and they were not going to allow the letter you typed to change their minds and let you rescind the resignation.

So far as I know, employer's don't have to, nor do they often allow employees to rescind a resignation, but sometimes employers have been known to make wild leaps of logic to read things employees document in writing as meaning they plan to quit.

So Restorative, the full content of that note you say isn't a resignation letter would be helpful, for me to give you my opinion as to whether it was, or not.

Chris

PS If you're thinking about asking a question, or telling a personal story about a job, or unemployment claim, please don't use your real name, the city, or town where you live, or your email addresses, phone numbers, or SSN's. All I need is good information to work with and the name of the state you work, or worked in ..